COOL Rules

On December 18, 2015, President Obama signed the 2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act (Public Law 114-113), an omnibus spending bill. This act included a provision that repealed mandatory COOL requirements for beef and pork, as outlined in the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946, as amended by the 2002 and 2008 Farm Bills. The repeal came after years of World Trade Organization (WTO) disputes with Canada and Mexico, who argued that the U.S. COOL rules discriminated against their livestock exports.

While this repeal didn’t directly allow foreign countries to label their products as "Product of the USA," it eliminated the requirement for retailers to specify the country of origin for beef and pork, potentially reducing transparency. Critics might argue this indirectly made it easier for imported meat to enter the U.S. market without clear origin distinction, though the "Product of the USA" label itself remained governed by separate USDA and FTC rules, which weren’t altered by this act to loosen standards for foreign products. At the time, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) still allowed voluntary "Product of USA" claims for products processed in the U.S., even if sourced from foreign-born animals—a loophole not addressed until later, in 2024.

In 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) addressed a long-standing loophole in the "Product of USA" labeling rules for meat, poultry, and egg products. Prior to this change, products could bear a "Product of USA" or "Made in the USA" label if they were merely processed or packaged in the United States, even if the animals were born, raised, and slaughtered elsewhere. This practice allowed imported meat to be misrepresented as American-made, frustrating consumers and domestic producers alike.

On March 11, 2024, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the finalization of a new rule during the National Farmers Union Annual Convention in Phoenix, Arizona. The rule, effective as of May 17, 2024, with mandatory compliance by January 1, 2026, stipulates that the voluntary "Product of USA" or "Made in the USA" label can only be used on meat, poultry, and egg products derived from animals that were born, raised, slaughtered, and processed entirely within the United States. This change closed the loophole by requiring all stages of production to occur domestically for the label to apply, aligning the claim with consumer expectations and preventing misleading origin labeling.

Mushrooms are regulated primarily by the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) for quality standards and grading, and their labeling is subject to general Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines for "Made in the USA" claims across non-meat agricultural products. The FTC’s standard, established in its 1997 "Made in the USA" policy and enforced under the FTC Act, requires that a product labeled as "Made in the USA" must be "all or virtually all" made in the United States, meaning the final assembly or processing and a significant portion of its components must be of U.S. origin. However, this is a broader, less specific standard than the FSIS’s 2024 rule, and it doesn’t mandate that mushrooms be grown (the equivalent of "born and raised") in the U.S.—only that their final processing occurs here if the claim is made.

Unlike meat, there’s no equivalent mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) requirement for mushrooms, though COOL applies to certain other produce like fresh fruits and vegetables under the 2002 Farm Bill (7 U.S.C. § 1638). Mushrooms can still carry voluntary "Product of USA" labels, but the 2024 FSIS rule’s stringent criteria—born, raised, slaughtered, and processed in the U.S.—don’t extend to them. Thus, imported mushrooms processed in the U.S. could still potentially use a "Product of USA" label under FTC rules, unless further AMS or FTC action aligns with the FSIS precedent. As of now, no specific 2024 update targets mushrooms with the same rigor as meat products.